Speaking to us at an event in London, Hearthstone lead artist Ben Thompson revealed that some of the weapons coming in the game’s next expansion, Kobolds & Catacombs, will speak to you from the board.
Here are all the cards so far revealed for Hearthstone: Kobolds & Catacombs.
The team were looking at World of Warcraft, Thompson says, and saw a mechanic they could lift: “Aluneth, for example, […] does talk to you and has interactions with the player. As a result, [we were like] ‘that’s kind of a fun thing – that’s very Hearthstone, maybe we just change some of the things it says.”
Aluneth and the other legendaries won’t be chattering away at you all the time. Senior game designer Peter Whalen explains that, “Aluneth has a play line when it comes out, it has a death line – maybe has more than one death line, I don’t remember – and then when it triggers it also says things too.”
You don’t need to worry about it being too talkative – “It’s not 100% of the time when it triggers,” Whalen says, “that was a little irritating, and it has multiple lines that it says when it fires.”
Whalen also confirmed that “Aluneth’s not the only one [that talks]”.
It’s interesting that Thompson and Whalen use Aluneth as the example, as we know that Medivh will be one of the alternative mage heroes of Kobolds & Catacombs and Aluneth is Medivh’s mother’s staff, so there’s lots of room for unique interactions – if Blizzard were looking to put in any easter eggs, that is.
It’s not likely that any of the other weapons revealed so far will have voice lines. However, the artifact weapons from World of Warcraft are the most likely to have lines added to them, because that’s how they work in the MMO. The most famous artifact is Xal’atath, Blade of the Black Empire, which is a Priest weapon, but that class has already had its legendary for the upcoming expansion revealed.
Another likely candidate is the Skull of Man’ari, which could be the Warlock’s weapon, particularly as Blizzard told is that the Warlock weapon had zero attack.
We’ll know more shortly.